Hot Tuna: 50+ Years of Flavor Freshness

What do you recommend players
do to develop that sense of
style as a player or songwriter?

All of us have musical heroes
and iconic styles we look to.
You need to find a foundation
of something you love to stimulate
the creative juices and bring
the music forward without
being an archivist. You need to
take it to another place.
A lot of people learn to play
their heroes’ songs note-for-note
but can’t take it beyond that.

One of the things that saved
me—and that was a true gift in
the long run—was that I either
didn’t have the ability or the
patience to learn songs note-for-note.
Even when I was learning
Reverend Gary Davis songs or
Merle Travis songs, I got what I
needed to play them. I didn’t agonize
over the minutiae. I’m sure
that some of the old guys didn’t
know that a C# minor chord was
very similar to an Amaj7, they just
liked how it sounded. Yet these
things fall into place as you learn
other people’s songs. I hear cool
chords and intervals in a Reverend
Gary Davis song, and I think,
“I need to snag that,” but I don’t
need to snag all the other things
that make it the Reverend’s song.
I don’t have the ability—and at
this point in my life, I don’t have
the time.
Did you ever experiment with
high-tech electronics like
Jack did when you were in
Jefferson Airplane?

No. Jack was always fearlessly
exploring the possibilities of sound,
but he’s probably the first to tell
you that a lot of that is a less-direct
tone path. If you pass the same
instrument around a room, each
player will sound different—and
that’s the magic of the instrument.
Your body mass affects it—how
you hold it, how big your belly is
pressing against the instrument.
Everyone worries about whether
the guitar has a mahogany back or
a rosewood back, but maybe it’s
about your beer gut pressing on
the guitar’s back.

Dan Erlewine, who lives nearby,
wanted me to put an armrest
on my acoustic guitar to keep
my arm off the face of my guitar
because he said that my arm kills
my tone. I went, “No Dan, it
doesn’t kill the tone, it changes
the tone.” I agree that it will
make a difference, but I’ve spent
my life changing the tone of my
acoustic guitar with my arm.

Tell me about your signature
Martin.

Much of my acoustic guitar
playing has centered on my
1959 Gibson J-50, but at this
point those large guitars are getting
difficult for me to play. I
got a Martin David Bromberg
signature guitar and really liked
it. I talked to [Martin’s director
of artist relations] Dick Boak
and he helped me put my guitar
together. It’s based on Martin’s
M series, and they’re very amplification-
friendly. I used to always
pare off bass from the sound,
because the body was so boomy
on jumbos and dreadnoughts.
I’m not a guitar designer, but I
knew I wanted a 1 3/4"-wide
neck—because my hands have
changed with age—forward
bracing, and a larger soundhole.
It also has a V-shaped neck,
which I like now that I’m older.
I can play it as long as I want,
and it never hurts my hand. And
I loved the Italian spruce top on
the Bromberg guitar, so we used
it on my guitar, too. It was a
treat to put together.

You do a lot of teaching at
your Fur Peace Ranch—how
did that evolve?

My wife and I talked about
doing a camp, so we bought
this 119-acre property in ’89
or ’90 in southeast Ohio. She
really drove the organization of
Fur Peace. My idea of a guitar
camp would have been a few
bales of hay around a campfire,
while her idea was a 200-seat
theater, an NPR radio show, a
restaurant, 17 cabins, etc. She
did all the heavy lifting and my
name helped get it started.

So we have a school with
four-day weekends. We have
great teachers and we all think
it’s important to pass on what
we’ve learned. Personally, I’ve
learned so much about music,
through teaching and learning the
vocabulary necessary to talk about
it, that it has made me a better
player. It sounds sappy, but it’s a
musical community—a bunch
of like-minded spirits of all ages,
hanging out and concentrating on
music. It’s a place of refuge where
you can get away from the weight
of regular life and get back to the
basics of music.

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